


The World Had Less Color Without You

by DreamsAreMyWords



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Assignment partners, Clexa, ClexaWeek2017, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Happy Ending, Love, Minor Angst, Pining, Slow Burn, Soulmates, VERY minor mentions of past character death such as Jake and Costia, minor Linctavia, minor Ranya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 05:24:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10074089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsAreMyWords/pseuds/DreamsAreMyWords
Summary: For ClexaWeek2017 Day 6: Friends to Lovers.When Lexa loses Costia, she also loses the ability to see in color. She thinks she'll never see again, but then a very pretty girl is assigned as her partner for her group project, and suddenly she can see snatches of blue and gold and other colors no matter how hard she pretends she can't...





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Geyranger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geyranger/gifts), [moishpain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moishpain/gifts).



> Based off that prompt that's been floating around: "You see the world in black and white until you meet your soulmate."
> 
> Ps: this fic is dedicated to Geyranger, thank you for reading this and giving me your precious thoughts! I love my fellow HP queen. <3  
> It's also dedicated to MoishPain (Sheep-in-clouds on tumblr) for creating that one very particularly stunning work of art of Lexa that feels so alive and utterly inspires me every time I look at it to create stories with positive wlw rep.

 

> _Golden leaves looked brown to me,_  
>  _The world had less color without you_  
>  _Shapes in the sky, looked plain to my eye,_  
>  _The world had less color without you_  
>  _I know plenty of people with eyes closed_  
>  _They don't see you like I do_ _  
> _
> 
> _-Darling I Do_

* * *

 

 

The first time Lexa sees color, it comes in the form of warm brown.

 

“Like chocolate.” Costia runs a hand through messy black curls. Her smile is nervous, excitement and trepidation hidden in dimpled skin tucked at the corners of full lips. “At least, that’s what my dad tells me.”

 

She blinks, lashes fluttering, and there it is.

 

Chocolate.

 

Next comes the faint red, a high blush on the apples of her cheeks, a tongue poking out to wet her lips. It makes the white of her teeth brighter as they flash, her smile broadening in disbelief when Lexa sputters, astonished. “I can see you.”

 

“What?”

 

“I can see you,” she breathes. She leans forward, reaching up without really thinking about it. She drifts the pads of her fingers across Costia’s soft skin—brown now, not gray. Everything about her is brown. Lexa loves it.

 

Lexa loves _her_.

 

Costia is smiling. She cups Lexa’s face in her hands and leans in. Lexa’s heart is thumping and she can’t hide her trembling. Their first kiss is as gentle as the breeze stirring their hair.

 

When Costia leans back, Lexa loses her breath all over again at all the color. The brown of her eyes, her smooth skin, her dark hair.

 

“Your eyes are green.”

 

They widen at the implications of Costia’s words.

 

“You—you can see, too?”

 

She laughs. “The first time I saw color, it was when you walked into Algebra.”

 

Months ago. Lexa sits silently for a moment, stricken. “That was why you acted so…”

 

“Weird? Yeah.” Costia laughs again and the sound is so beautiful gooseflesh erupts over Lexa’s skin. “It took me a couple days to settle down. I went online and looked up all the colors. Dad helped me, too.”

 

“Why did you wait so long?” Lexa couldn’t keep the accusation out of her tone, but Costia is only smiling. “You saw me, I didn’t see you. I could have been seeing in color months ago, too.”

 

“I was nervous. I’m sorry.” She wraps her arms around Lexa’s neck. The next kiss Costia gives her is apologetic. Lexa can hardly breathe.

 

“That’s cheating,” she whispers when Costia draws back. Costia giggles and nuzzles her nose into Lexa’s shoulder.

 

Costia drops a kiss to Lexa’s nose, playful. “Your eyes are green. Your hair is brown. Your lips are pink.” She trails a hand down, pinching the collar of Lexa’s shirt. “This is red, with some orange on it too. Your pants are black. Your shoes are black, too.”

 

“What’s this?” Lexa gestures toward Costia’s dress. It’s bright and pleasant to look at.

 

“Yellow. Like the sun. But don’t look at it,” says Costia quickly, yanking Lexa when she immediately upturns her face to the sky.

 

“That’s blue,” says Lexa in genuine interest, smiling slightly as she took in all the blue above them. “And I know the grass is green.” She tugs a few blades free and brings them up for closer examination before she lets them drift away in the breeze. She squints at the distant trees. “I thought leaves were green.”

 

“Sometimes. They change color. When they’re dying.”

 

Lexa’s brow furrows. “That’s…sad.”

 

Costia just smiles and nuzzles in again. “It’s beautiful, though. Brown, orange, yellow, red. Fall is my favorite season just because of all the colors.”

 

\\\\\

 

 

As Lexa comes to learn, quiet death exists everywhere, not just to the trees in autumn.

 

It’s early morning when she goes on her run. Her shoes crunch the colorful leaves strewn along the pavement. Brown, orange, yellow, red. She’s seen color for almost four years now. She hardly even notices it anymore.

 

She’s breathing heavy and sweating as she walks the final leg down the hill toward her apartment. Costia usually runs with her, but she’s spent the morning cooped up in a stuffy classroom for a test she spent the entire night complaining about, even with Lexa holding her and distracting her with historical documentaries. Lexa is absently wondering what the campus cafeteria is making for dinner tonight as she opens the mailbox. The gate has just swung shut behind her and she is walking across the lawn when it happens.

 

She blinks, and suddenly all the color drains away.

 

She stares down at the grass that, a moment ago, had been a yellowing green, and now appears almost white. She stares at the leaves, curled and dying, scattered around her. They are all gray now. Their red-bricked house is gray. The sky is gray.

 

Where has all the color gone?

 

Lexa’s pocket vibrates. Still in a trance, she fishes it out and the screen flashes at her. There is an unknown number calling her. Beyond the notification, there is a screensaver of her and Costia, arms wrapped around one another and grins on their faces. Lexa can’t see any brown now. Only gray.

 

Fear snakes up her spine, paralyzing and suffocating, so sharp and dangerous she could choke on it. She drops the mail as she hurries to answer the call.

 

Hours later, she is identifying a body from a car crash, and she is so thankful she can’t see the vivid red of the blood. She can hardly see anything with the tears that won’t stop. They fill her eyes again and again and she can’t help but think that, if she could see colors, everything would exist in a kind of kaleidoscope.

 

\\\\\

 

 

The years pass and she almost forgets what it’s like. Almost, but not quite.

 

She loses herself in grad school and tells herself that she doesn’t miss it anymore and it doesn't matter anyway when all she ever looks at are black markings on white paper. Soon enough she will be spending the majority of her time in a courtroom and the vivid hues of the spring flowers will be the least of her concern.

 

Anya is helpful, at first. It’s fate that led them both to the same university; they had been friends once, as children, when they were stuck at the same orphanage before moving on to a new foster home. They meet again as adults in a philosophy class during undergrad and bonded over their mutual derision at the mediocre white boy who kept “playing devil’s advocate” every time the assigned readings covered a topic he couldn't possibly understand. Anya had never seen in color before, and Anya didn’t _want_ to see in color.

 

“It’s a joke. It’s all a joke. They act like you aren’t complete until you see color, like you’re not a whole person if you’ve only seen shades of gray but you know what? I don’t need it. I don’t need anyone to ‘ _complete me_ ,’” she rants, most often during breaks between classes, shades perched atop her head amidst the wild waves of light gray hair, one hand always sure to be holding a Styrofoam cup of black coffee, “I am my own complete person with or without the ability to see reflected particles of light. I don’t buy in to this soulmate _bullshit,”_ she says fiercely, glaring like she is daring someone to contradict her before taking a sip of her coffee. She crosses her legs and reclines back against the picnic table they sit at as though they have been casually discussing the weather.

 

Lincoln is the opposite. Lexa doesn’t know how she stomachs going through it, day after day, looking at his soft, gooey smiles and listening to him quietly sing praises of Octavia Blake, the girl he met in his Ethics in Sports Administration class. He saw color the day she bumped into him in the hall, and she saw it a week later when she caught him sketching a picture of her. They’ve been inseparable ever since.

 

“Come on, Lex,” he quietly urges, always late at night when Lexa is buried in her papers and exhausted and, coincidentally, Anya is out of their shared apartment. “Maybe if you just got back out there, gave it a go, you’d see again…”

 

“Seeing again is a myth designed to give false hope to people who can’t see,” Lexa always answers back, far calmer than the way she scrubs her hands over her tired face. “I don’t have time for empty dreams…” She never finishes. She always lets the same sentence trails away, and Lincoln always shakes his head sadly and leaves it alone.

 

That’s the way life goes for a time. Lexa keeps her head down and maintains her perfect GPA. She goes to the gym and loses herself in the beat of her feet slapping the indoor track, in the slide of sweat dripping down her skin. Her advisor, Titus, praises her for her focus, for not being like her naïve peers by letting the unnecessary urge to see blind her, by not embracing that weakness. Her favorite professor, Indra, seems equal parts respect and concern; Lexa never misses the crease in her brow when she hands in her papers early, but she chooses to focus on the approving nod instead.

 

\\\\\

 

It’s spring when it happens.

 

Lexa arrives early for her Technique to Research class. It’s the first semester of her last year at Polis University. Her back is straight and shoulders stiff as students file into the room. She stares at the whiteboard awaiting the professor’s instructions, and she doesn’t see her. She doesn’t see her until it’s too late, until Professor Gustus assigns everyone a four-member group for their semester-long project and Lexa sighs amidst the scraping of chairs and desks as students move around to introduce themselves and start making plans to meet and work.

 

Lexa is scribbling down the dates the projects are due when a person occupies the seat before her and turns it around to face her. She glances up and promptly loses her breath, pen stilling over her paper, because for a moment—one strange moment—she swears she sees blue. Then she blinks, and—maybe it was a trick of the light.

 

“Hi,” says the very, very pretty girl, with a wide grin curling across her face as she sticks a hand out for Lexa to shake. “I’m Clarke Griffin.”

 

Lexa forgets that there are two other people in their group, one of whom is still searching for a chair to pull up and the other already sitting beside them, appearing apathetic and bored, the complete opposite of Lexa. Lexa can’t help it; above all things, Clarke is beautiful, and Lexa is very, very gay.

 

“Lexa,” she says, shaking the girl’s warm hand. It takes her a minute to realize she is staring, and even longer that they are still clutching hands. She drops Clarke’s hand with a jolt, as though it burned her, and quickly casts her gaze down on her half-written notebook entry to escape the gray eyes curiously studying her.

 

“Right, well,” says Clarke, glancing down at Lexa’s schedule too and smirking at the blot of ink, “We’d better get started.”

 

 

\\\\\

 

 

“Hey.”

 

Clarke is grinning when they meet in an empty classroom a few days later, as planned. Lexa spares a small smile in return, politely baffled by the way Clarke rocks back and forth on her heels, her entire body coiled in excitement.

 

“Hey. Um. What’s going on?”

 

Clarke wordlessly points. Lexa turns to see a large box of powdered donuts perched on their table.

 

“I saw you eating some in the cafeteria the other day. I realize I probably sound like a total creeper,” she adds with a chuckle, which certainly doesn’t do anything about the heat creeping up the back of Lexa’s neck, “But I was thinking that you seem like the only normal person in our group and if I don’t want to do all the work myself, I’d better butter you up.”

 

That Lexa understands. Their other two group members are Jasper Jordan, a perpetually stoned goof-off, and notorious slacker John Murphy, whom Lexa is not even positive is an actual student here. She’d been under the impression he’s a dropout that still lives on campus just for the parties. Lexa had been fairly certain she would end up doing the bulk of the project herself, so she’s thankful for Clarke stepping up. And even more thankful for the surprise donuts.

 

“Thank you.” She smiles, moving to the table. Clarke watches her pick out a donut and take a bite before sitting and beginning to pull out her books.

 

“Awesome, so now that I’ve bought you, you’re going to handle the whole assignment, right?”

 

When Lexa looks up, startled, Clarke stares seriously for another half second before snorting and laughing. “Kidding.”

 

Lexa deadpans her. “Funny.”

 

“Your glare is a little less threatening when you have powder on your lips,” jokes Clarke.

 

“You’re the one who gave me donuts.”

 

“You’re the one stuffing your face with them.”

 

Lexa rolls her eyes and wipes at her mouth and absolutely does not blush at the sound of Clarke’s sweet laughter.

 

That night, when she walks home to her apartment, she thinks she sees a tint of color. The storm clouds are gray, but then they always are. It’s just. Somehow today they seem…bluer.

                            

She pushes it out of her mind as she shoves her hands deep into her jacket pockets and walks home. She does her homework, takes a shower, and crawls into bed dragging her fingers through her tangled wet hair. Thunder rumbles and rain drips down beyond the window beside her bed. There is a flash of yellow light as lightning strikes in the distance. No, there wasn’t. It was a trick of her light, a glitch in her peripheral vision. She can’t have seen color. A mistake. It must have been.

 

She sleeps and dreams of a dream of color.

 

\\\\\

 

It takes three days of patiently correcting Clarke’s spelling to realize she’s dyslexic. It takes four days of patiently dealing with Lexa correcting everything for Clarke to throw a donut at her and tell her they’re taking a break.

 

Lexa sets her pen down guiltily, apologizes and waits for Clarke to leave—but she doesn’t. Clarke stands up and slings her bag over her shoulder and stares expectantly at Lexa.

 

“Uh—what?”

 

“We’re taking the break together, dork,” says Clarke. Lexa should probably be offended a stranger who certainly does not know her well enough to call her a dork is, well, calling her a dork (except Clarke had definitely noticed all the Harry Potter memorabilia in Lexa’s bedroom when she came over to work on the project two nights ago, and Lexa may or may not have an unfortunate habit of leaving donut powder on the tip of her nose, and make shitty puns in her dry sense of humor that made Clarke snort and choke on her coffee). “We can go get a drink or something. Or pizza! Do you like pizza?”

 

Lexa deadpans her, and Clarke grins.

 

“Of course you like pizza, what am I saying. You’re only human. When you aren’t a moving, grooving, studying machine, anyway.”

 

It’s Lexa’s turn to snort. To Clarke’s credit, she only blushes a little at her terrible joke. Taking pity on her, Lexa snaps her laptop shut, closes her Techniques of Research book, and follows Clarke out of the library. They troop across the street to the quaint pizzeria on the corner near the gas station. They gorge themselves and Lexa isn’t sure she’s even capable of opening up the essay again, let alone actually expending energy to write.

 

“This was your plan all along,” she groans, massaging her stomach.

 

Clarke smirks as she wraps her lips around her straw. Not that Lexa is watching her lips. Okay, maybe she is, but it’s not—Clarke is just beautiful and, like she said, Lexa is only human. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re the one whose stomach was rumbling. Even while you were demolishing an entire bag of donuts.”

 

Lexa’s cheeks warm. She aims a sleepy half-hearted scowl at Clarke. “Stop buying me them.”

 

“I can’t, you’re too adorable, you get powder all over your face and you look like a coke addict. Why were we not friends before? Years of entertainment, wasted.”

 

Lexa works hard to keep her face as smooth and composed as her calm voice as she says casually, “Are we friends?”

 

Clarke wrinkles her nose and gives her a look. “Well, yeah. We’ve known each other less than a week, but I’d say we’re friends. You’re smart and funny and you seem nice and you didn’t give me that bullshit pitying look when I told you yes I’m dyslexic and yes I want to be a doctor one day.” She surveys Lexa over the rim of her glass. “You seem pretty chill. I’d like to be friends with you.”

 

Lexa can’t help it; she bursts out laughing. Clarke looks torn between amusement herself, and confusion. “What?”

 

“Nothing, it’s just—we definitely haven’t known each other long if you think I’m chill,” says Lexa, sobering slightly. “Anya says I’ve got a permanent stick up my ass, and that’s saying something, coming from her.”

 

Clarke’s lips quirk. “As unfamiliar as I am with people who have sticks up their asses, I’m serious. There’s something about you, Lexa Woods,” she announces as she grabs another slice of pizza; even as full as she is, Lexa can’t help watching the elongating strings of cheese as Clarke lifts it and pulls it over to her plate. “I had a feeling we’d be friends as soon as Professor Gustus assigned us together. And that’s not just because Lincoln pointed you out to me in the hall last semester and I’ve been jealous of your tattoo ever since.”

 

“You know Lincoln?” queried Lexa, then she pauses as her cheeks warm yet again with Clarke’s last statement. Clarke had been appreciating her tattoo at some point, which meant she’d been staring at her at some point months ago and Lexa never noticed.

 

Not that it matters.

 

But.

 

Clarke is beautiful, and kind of hilarious, and Lexa likes how her gray eyes light up with her smirk when she commits generous deeds with an air of wicked delight, as though being kind is synonymous with being mischievous.

 

Lexa doesn’t mind the idea of Clarke staring at her, not one bit.

 

“Yeah, he’s dating my friend Octavia. They’re adorable and disgusting, don’t you think?”

 

Lexa dips her head in a nod. “Two words very apt to describe them. Anya usually just gags.”

 

“Ah,” sighs Clarke, tossing her pizza crust on Lexa’s plate; Lexa looks at it forlornly, stomach full to bursting, before exhaling and picking it up. “I know I’ve only met her once, but…that’s so Anya.”

 

Lexa snorts as she nibbles her way through the pizza crust. “She’s definitely a character.”

 

“She reminds me of Raven. Just wait until you meet her.” Clarke smiles. “I think she and Anya would get along great.”

 

“Does she threaten to disembowel you if you wake her up in the morning?”

 

“She threatens to hide a bomb in my car.”

 

“Yep, they’d be best friends.”

 

 

\\\\\

 

 

Their other group members are useless.

 

Under normal circumstances, Lexa would be bristling with irritation at them for not even offering to help research their topic.

 

But these are not normal circumstances. A week ago, Lexa didn’t even know Clarke existed. A pretty girl with an intriguing smirk that lit up her eyes was assigned to her group project, and spends the majority of every hour of the day the next seven days at Lexa’s side. It’s been seven days and Clarke has been everywhere; seven days and she is already seeping into Lexa’s life in entirely unexpected, terrifying ways. A half-eaten bag of donuts left in Lexa’s car. An empty coffee cup with Clarke’s name scrawled at the top forgotten on Lexa’s kitchen table. Starburst wrappers littering Lexa’s trashcan. A faint trace of perfume, lovely and subtle, left lingering on Lexa’s couch, on her car, on their usual seats at the library—everywhere they’ve been. Sometimes Lexa swears she can still smell it, like the day she deviates from her normal routine of taking the stairs to the third floor for class in favor of the elevator instead to avoid the suspicious-looking sticky stain on the steps, and the doors close and she can smell her. Like she was just standing in there.

 

Lexa shifts her weight from leg to leg uncomfortably and is unsure whether she’s relieved or disappointed when the doors open again.

 

//

 

“Her name was Costia.”

 

This is foolish. Reaching into her own chest, prying open her rib cage and exposing her wildly beating heart for anyone to harm. It’s foolish. Being so vulnerable and exposed is foolish. Yet here she is.

 

She’s known Clarke for barely a fortnight. Just over a dozen days. Days spent huddled together in the library where they are supposed to be researching their topic, when instead they’re giggling at the _RIP Vine_ compilations Clarke is playing on her phone, heads close together to catch snatches of sound from the headphones shared between them to avoid the wrath of the librarian. Nights spent sprawled out on apartment floors, either Lexa’s immaculate one where they are constantly interrupted by Anya, haughty from being kept awake by their poorly hushed laughter, or the carpet of Clarke’s living room that, in all honesty, could do with a thorough vacuuming.

 

Now, she is curled up into the corner of Clarke’s couch. She already dug the stale Cheetos out of the cracks, throwing them at a spluttering, cackling Clarke. They were all laughter and smiles until Lexa mentioned she didn’t fancy having orange dust coated on the ass of her black jeans, and the light in Clarke’s gray eyes dimmed and her smile faded and Lexa noticed. Of course Lexa noticed. It led to Clarke tentatively asking when Lexa could see, and now here they are. Lexa is curled up on the corner of Clarke’s couch and Clarke is watching her quietly as she whispers the memories she holds nearest to her heart. That she’d met Costia in Junior High and they started dating during their Junior year. That she lost her in her Junior year of college. That it was all terribly ironic and she missed her more than anything. That Costia was beautiful and color was beautiful and there were no words to describe having them and no words to describe losing them.

 

Clarke puts a warm hand on Lexa’s knee in a gesture of comfort and she wishes she is brave enough—foolish enough—to place her hand over Clarke’s.

 

Clarke says she’s sorry, and Lexa knows she means it, but she still shakes her head.

 

“It was a long time ago. I thought I’d never get over the pain, but I did.”

 

Clarke is looking closely at her, hanging on to her every word, and Lexa can read the question in her eyes. _But you lost her. You had everything, and then the world turned gray again. How do you go on from that?_ “How?”

 

Lexa swallows hard and shrugs lightly. (Contradictions. Sometimes it feels as though that is all she is made of).

 

“By recognizing it for what it is. Weakness.” She hears the tiny intake of breath Clarke makes, sees the recognition and the torn, conflicting emotions flicker across her eyes. Not for the first time, she wonders if Clarke knows how it feels. Has Clarke seen color before? Does she see in color now? These are not the kind of questions people ask one another, and certainly not people that have known each other less than two weeks even if they do click and have some type of weird connection.

 

Lexa pushes the thoughts out of her head and channels her Inner-Anya, relishing the rants, and remembers Titus’s stoic words. “Society relies too much on it. People spend their whole lives looking forward to seeing, everything builds up to it so that it’s all that matters. There are more important things. We all have a life to live regardless. Might as well just get on with it. Color’s only important because we make it important, but you can survive without it. People act like you can’t, but…you can.”

 

“Well yeah, but…don’t you think life should be about more than just surviving?” says Clarke softly. Suddenly her hand feels far too heavy on Lexa’s knee, and the air in the room is far too thick and suffocating, but she can’t look away from Clarke’s tender, worried gaze. “Maybe seeing doesn’t matter as much as we make it seem, but that doesn’t mean we have to totally disregard it either. Sometimes we should just relax, and…eat Cheetos,” she adds with a laugh, tossing one of the stale ones Lexa threw at her earlier back at her, “And waste our time looking at sunsets and flowers and all the things that are more beautiful when we can appreciate them for everything they are. Life doesn’t have to be nothing but school and work and paying bills and dying. I just think we deserve better than that.”

 

A lump constricts Lexa’s throat and, to her horror, her eyes sting. The world around her distorts and trembles as the film of tears blur her eyes and for a moment—hardly a breath—she sees it. Blue, blinking long lashes at her. Blue, deep and tender and curious and—so _blue._

 

Lexa gasps, blinking rapidly to dispel it, and Clarke’s face contorts in concern. She moves forward quickly, wrapping an arm around Lexa’s shoulder and pulling her into a tight embrace. Lexa is frozen in place, breathing ragged and entire body trembling. _Get ahold of yourself._

 

When Clarke pulls back to grip her shoulders and peer intently at her, her eyes are gray again. It must have been her tears blurring things, her mind messing with her.

 

Lexa wonders why the next sob she gasps in rips at her throat and tastes more like anguish than relief.

 

\\\\\

 

 

A week passes and alcohol is brought into the mix.

 

She and Clarke are supposed to be lost in Google Docs right now, editing their project and suffering aching headaches from the stress and the strain of their eyes focusing on computer screens for too long. Instead, their heads are spinning and the room is spinning and they are both lying spread-eagle on the floor, an empty bottle between them.

 

“You should have glow in the dark stars,” says Clarke in a hushed voice.

 

Lexa blinks up at the ceiling. She’s not sure what Clarke is talking about. She never bought any glow in the dark stars but she is fairly certain there are still stars blinking at her. Her head rolls as she looks at Clarke and sees even more stars in her eyes, entire galaxies devoid of color lost in the gray irises. She thinks. Maybe. It’s like the stars on her ceiling. There are none there, she knows that, but she blinks and—maybe. And Clarke. Clarke’s eyes are gray. Everything is gray. Lexa knows that, but she blinks and sometimes she thinks she catches a shade. Blue. Or gold framing her head, like a halo except… Or pink, like her lips are bruised by the ghost of kisses that never happened. That maybe Lexa wants to happen. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t want to know. She tries not to think about it.

 

They fall asleep with space between them and Lexa wakes up with Clarke’s hair in her mouth and her hand on fire, arm numb beneath Clarke’s body, wrist bent at an awkward angle as Clarke clutches it tightly to her chest. Maybe Lexa can feel her pulse. Maybe Lexa caught a glimpse of sunlight. Maybe Clarke’s hair is blonde.

 

She blinks, her heart stopping.

 

No, it’s not. It’s gray.

 

Maybe Lexa still dreams in color sometimes.

 

\\\\\

 

 

The semester is halfway over, and so is their paper. Clarke suggests they celebrate so Lexa arrives at her apartment with a bottle of wine and a box of pepperoni pizza. Raven, Clarke’s roommate, lets her in and greets Lexa in her typical way: a few science puns that go way over Lexa’s head, a smirk as she graciously offers to take the pizza to the kitchen for her while subtly steering her toward Clarke’s room to fetch her, and a pat on the back that was partly patronizing, partly friendly. Mostly friendly. Lexa is familiar with people like Raven. She’s friends with Anya; she knows how they work.

 

She finds Clarke in her pajamas, utterly invested in some BBC documentary about raccoons, and it takes several minutes to urge her up and out of bed so they can at least eat their pizza. They find it missing a couple slices, with a loving post-it-note placed on the fridge stating Raven went to the lab to work on her own homework and for them to have fun and play nice. Lexa blushes and Clarke rolls her eyes and they put a movie on as they eat their pizza. Clarke licks the strings of stray cheese off her fingers and Lexa decides asking Clarke why she seems upset—because Clarke had clearly not gotten out of bed before Lexa arrived and there’s a perpetual crease between her brows and the corners of those pink— _gray_ —lips are tilted down, and Lexa knows Clarke enough now (knows her better than she is comfortable admitting) to know she is upset—and because that feels safer than thinking about why heat is flushing her face.

 

Clarke’s face settles into disgruntled lines and Lexa almost regrets asking, until Clarke sighs and says, “My ex has been calling me.”

 

Now Lexa really isn’t sure whether or not she regrets asking.

 

“We haven’t talked in a year, but he randomly started calling me today. I didn’t want Raven to know, because it might upset her. Mostly it pisses me off because…why now? He knew what last week was…”

 

Lexa knows too. Last week was the seventh anniversary of the death of Clarke’s father. She and Clarke had spent the day watching the Lion King. Clarke cried on Lexa’s shoulder when Mufasa died and laughed when Lexa mimicked Professor Titus’ lecturing with Zazu’s voice, and then they gorged themselves on spaghetti and meatballs until they could hardly move.

 

“I don’t know what to do,” Clarke admits, teeth worrying at her bottom lip.

 

“You should block his number, and if he won’t stop, contact the police.”

 

“I’m going to block him today,” says Clarke. “I just…I hate that it has to come to that period, I hate that we couldn’t just be friends or at least end things amicably. I told him to stop calling but he says he can’t. Or he won’t. Because...”

 

There have been a few things Clarke has avoided telling her, Lexa knows and she doesn’t push. She thinks this may be one of them. She still doesn’t want to push, so she just quietly watches Clarke, and she waits.

 

Clarke frowns, a few strands of her light hair flying from her face with her huff of breath. “I just think it’s pretty fucked up. The first time Raven saw color, she was eight. She had a new neighbor…Finn Collins. Took one look at him and could see it all, the sky, her house, his clothes, the color of her leg brace. Wasn’t like that for him. He didn’t see color until they went to college together. Walked into Earth Science and bam.” She sucks in a deep breath, fingers tightening where they grip the oak frame of the kitchen table. “There I was.”

 

Lexa stares, aware that this moment is heavy with important, that the fact that Clarke is telling her this is of great significance. “Is that when you…?”

 

Clarke briefly closes her eyes, mouth thinning in a sardonic smile. When she opens them again, they are hard and bitter. “No. I’ve never seen color before.”

 

Lexa lapses into a thoughtful, somber silence, bowing her head and gazing at her clasped hands in her lap. She can understand why Clarke would hate the concept, then. Raven loved Finn, Finn loved Clarke, and Clarke didn’t love anyone. Wasteful.

 

The veins of Lexa’s knuckles shift as she balls her hands into fists. Anger is bubbling within her, sparking and spitting like a fire threatening to grow and overtake everything. It isn’t fair. None of this was ever fair.

 

“My mom tells me to hold out hope, though,” adds Clarke, punctuating the words with a harsh laugh.

 

Lexa’s brow furrows. “How can she…your father—“

                                                 

“She saw again.” Lexa remains quiet, eyes wide. Clarke’s jaw is working as though she is chewing on something unpleasant. Finally, she sighs. “Look, it’s probably shitty of me to be bitter about it. I’m not—I’m happy for her. I am. She shouldn’t have to be miserable for the rest of her life. My dad would have wanted this.” There is a slight tremble to her lower lip. If Lexa leans in closer, looks more carefully, it could be pink. It could be. But it’s gray. Lexa tells herself that very firmly. It’s gray. “My dad died and she lost color for years. Then, like ten months ago, this guy comes to the hospital. He’s a cop, banged up from whatever he’d been doing, and my mom was the one to stitch him up. He made her laugh and suddenly she could see his blood. He told her the minute she walked in, he saw teal. The scrubs she was wearing. Said she walked in and brought the color with her. It wasn’t quite as fast for my mom. She just saw bits here and there, until one day I’m having dinner with them for the first time and she says she can see everything and that they’re moving in together.” Clarke shrugs. “He’s a nice guy. I’m happy for them both.”

 

Clarke doesn’t sound happy. She sounds broken, and above all, achingly sad, but it is like opening the floodgate. She tells Lexa about Wells, her best friend who lost his battle with cancer when they were fifteen. She tells her about her father’s car crash, the long months spent fighting for his life, and the songs they played at his funeral. Lexa tells her about her own parents, about her childhood growing up in foster care. About the fact that, until Costia told her, Lexa never knew what color her own eyes were.

  
They laugh, they cry, and they find solace in one another, and Lexa never thought she’d be so grateful for an assigned group project in her life, but God, she is.

 

They open the bottle of wine and they make their way through it as they finish Mulan, and if they sit perhaps too close together on the couch, pressed to each other’s sides, Lexa doesn’t say anything, and if Clarke’s hand falls near Lexa’s, pinky curving against her own in silent questioning, Lexa doesn’t question it. She hooks their pinkies together before Clarke shifts. Palm kisses palm as their fingers intertwine and neither of them say anything.

 

Lexa wakes up in the middle of the night when Raven returns and throws a blanket over them with a smile and a wink. She doesn’t say anything. Lexa doesn’t either.

  
Clarke mumbles in her sleep and wraps her limbs around Lexa’s body, nuzzling into the warmth of Lexa’s neck, lips drifting past the hollow where her heart beats wildly, and Lexa chokes back the urge to say _something._ She carefully detaches herself, tucks Clarke into the blanket, and heads home.

 

In the morning, Clarke texts her and thanks her for listening. Lexa doesn’t know how to tell her that there’s no need to thank her, so she sends back a smiley face and snorts at the monster she unintentionally created when Clarke sends a hundred different ones back.

 

 

\\\\\

 

“I want to show you something.”

 

Lexa frowns over the top of her laptop. Clarke is sitting on the opposite end of the couch, where she has for the past ten minutes been displaying a spectacular example of how to write an essay by eating ramen noodles and scrolling through her Instagram feed.

 

“What?”

 

“Well, you know how I told you I used to paint a lot?”

 

Lexa’s stoic nod seems to relax Clarke, for her lips quirk.

 

“I painted the other day.”

 

Lexa shuts her laptop and sits up straighter. She sets the laptop down on the table. “Did you? Can I see it?” When Clarke hesitates, Lexa adds softly, “Only if you want to. I know it’s personal to you.”

 

It was. Clarke told her she hadn’t painted since her father passed. Lexa wonders what could have inspired her to start again, but there’s no time to think of that when Clarke stands, putting her empty bowl down and extending a hand for Lexa. Lexa slides her own into it and ignores the jump of her heart, silently padding along behind Clarke as she leads her into the spare room in her apartment.

 

There’s a painting propped against the windowsill and Lexa stills as she sees it. She doesn’t even notice that she’s dropped Clarke’s hand, moving slowly closer to see it.

 

“I know it’s probably stupid,” says Clarke from behind her.

 

“What is?”

 

Clarke chews on her lip, brow furrowed. She is twitchy and edgy with vulnerability that does not come easily to her. She gestures toward the painting. “This. Trying to make art when I can’t see any colors.”

 

It’s ironic.

 

It’s ironic because the canvas is completely littered in every color under the sun. It’s not like a neatly trimmed rainbow. It’s an explosion of emotion, a galaxy filled to the brim with bright shades and glooming darkness and swirling hues. Clarke has painted the sky green and the grass blue, but it is more beautiful because of it. Clarke doesn’t know how it doesn’t make sense, and that makes it even more beautiful.

 

Lexa can’t say any of that.

 

Instead she says, “Black and white art is beautiful too.”

 

Clarke’s smile spreads warmth throughout Lexa’s chest. Lexa blinks, and sees the rosy tint of Clarke’s cheeks. “Thank you. It felt…really good. It felt good to pick up a paintbrush again.”

  
Lexa swallows, clasping her hands behind her back to hide how they shake. “What inspired you?”

 

One corner of Clarke’s lips tugs up higher. “You, actually. I was just thinking about our conversation before. It kind of makes me a hypocrite, don’t you think? To give you this big speech about smelling the roses and life being about more than just surviving, but I don’t even try picking back up a hobby that makes me happy just because it reminds me of sad memories. So…” She shrugs. “I rustled through a few boxes and found my old stuff, and here we are. You really like it?”

 

Lexa doesn’t trust her voice, so she merely nods. Clarke seems to understand, because her smile is tinged with shyness and—oh, God, her hair is blonde. “Thank you. It’s for you.”

 

“Me?” stutters Lexa in surprise, sucking in a breath when Clarke nods and laughs at her reaction. “I…wow. Thank you,” she says fervently, and her head still spins as Clarke crosses the room to draw her into a tight hug.

 

“Who knows, maybe it’ll inspire you, too!” Clarke draws back, and she is so near that looking into her eyes feels like drowning, or maybe falling in the sky. In this moment Lexa figures the sensations must be one in the same.

 

She should tell her. She should tell Clarke that she can see.

 

“You really like it, don’t you?” chirps Clarke, taking Lexa’s speechlessness for appreciation of the art, which, don’t get Lexa wrong, she does love the painting, but it’s the living, breathing work of color beside her staring up at her that’s got her thunderstruck. She numbly nods.

 

Clarke grins and nudges a playful elbow at Lexa’s ribs. “You like me too.”

 

It’s so much more than that. Lexa has fallen so deep into the rabbit hole that she doesn’t know how she’ll ever get out. She should tell Clarke, she knows she should, but.

 

Admitting it out loud makes it real. Making it real means the consequences are more real, too. Lexa had been able to see color before. She’d also lost color before.

 

She couldn’t survive it again. She _wouldn’t._

 

She smiles and nudges Clarke back. “I guess I do.”

 

(Clarke may be a hypocrite, but Lexa is a liar).

 

 

\\\\\

 

A week before their project is due, a thunderstorm causes a power surge and half the town’s electricity is out.

 

Lexa and Clarke are building a pillow fort when the sound of a key inserting into the lock alerts them to the return of the other inhabitant of the apartment. Anya takes one step inside, swivels her gaze around to take in the insane amount of lit candles littered throughout the living room, and sighs.

 

“You are a fucking addict, Lexa. And Clarke, you encourage it.”

 

“In my defense, like, seventy-five percent of these were already up when I got here,” says Clarke, lifting her hands palm-up in surrender. She splutters when a pillow smacks into her face.

 

“You deserved that,” says Anya, watching as Clarke flips Lexa the bird, pushing her mussed up hair out of her face.

 

“You would get along with Raven so well,” says Clarke delicately, matter-of-factly stacking the pillows around her as though Lexa couldn’t see that she was plain as day stocking up on ammo. “You guys need to meet.”

 

Lexa subtly inches to the right, maneuvering around so half her body is blocked by the couch. “They’d probably kill each other.”

 

“Or fuck the sass out of their systems,” Clarke points out, arching a brow as she notices Lexa inching away. Lexa grins, caught.

 

“I’m afraid my sass is in never-ending supply,” says Anya dryly. She rolls her eyes when she sees Clarke slowly take a pillow and lift it above her head. “God, wait, I’m getting out of here, I’ll head to work early. There better be an apartment for me to come back to. If you idiots burn this place to the ground having a pillow fight, I’m murdering both of you.”

 

Anya shuts the door to the sound of Lexa’s war cry and Clarke’s squeal as Lexa pops up unexpectedly, delivering her siege of pillows she’d already been secretly hoarding behind the couch.

 

\\\\\

 

The candles are low, bathing the room in their soft glow. The electricity has been fixed for an hour now, but they decide their pillow fort is worth the trouble they went through to make it (make it twice, considering it had been destroyed in their earlier war). They lay sprawled in the center of it, surrounded by the comfort of the bedding, and Lexa is close to giving in to her drowsiness and falling asleep (especially with Clarke curled up beside her) when Clarke speaks.

 

“Lexa?” she whispers. She plays with the hair tie on Lexa’s wrist, fidgeting with it as she works up the courage to say whatever it is she’s going to say. Lexa knows what’s coming. “What’s it like?”

 

When Lexa is silent, Clarke looks up at her. She blinks once and Lexa watches the lashes fall and rise over vividly azure eyes, as blue as the ocean, as clear as the sky.

 

Clarke sucks her bottom lip into her mouth and Lexa understands why people equate the word blue with sadness. “What was it like, seeing the world in color?”

 

“I don’t know. It’s not really something you can explain unless you experience it.” When Clarke’s face falls, she swallows at the guilt simmering in her gut, and says, “I guess…it’s just…a feeling.”

 

“Like what?” says Clarke, voice hushed.

 

“Like…” Lexa struggles to think of an adequate analogy for the situation and none come to mind. She holds Clarke’s gaze in mild frustration, watching the way the candlelight flickers across her face and in luminous blue eyes, long lashes silhouetted in the orange reflection. Lexa loses her breath all over again. “You know when you see someone really beautiful?”

 

Clarke watches her carefully. “Yes...”

 

“It’s kind of like that. You can’t really explain it, what you are feeling. You just get lost in blue eyes and you feel the swell of it here.” She brushes the pad of her thumb across Clarke’s chest, where her heart is beating rather fast beneath. She shifts her hand up, fingers brushing the feather-fine hairs at the back of Clarke’s neck as she traces her thumb up the column of Clarke’s throat, watching it dip as she swallows hard. “And here.”

 

Clarke’s eyes are unfocused as Lexa finishes the sweeping arc of her thumb, trailing the contour of Clarke’s jaw and brushing her ear before running through her hair. She lets her hand fall onto the pillow beside her as the reality of what she just did—straight up stroked her best friend in a painfully obvious more-than-friendly way—flushes her cheeks. Clarke’s gaze is focused again and she is watching Lexa more closely than Lexa thinks she’s ever been watched before.

 

“Oh,” whispers Clarke, and that’s it. That’s it, but Lexa can’t bear to just leave it there, to let it end like that. _Oh._ No.

 

“You know what you told me?” Lexa inches closer, both of their heads resting on the same pillow. The rumble of thunder is faint and distant now. The apartment is still and quiet and dim. “How life is about more than just surviving?”

 

Clarke swallows again. Nods.

 

“It’s that. That is what seeing is like. It’s looking at something bigger than yourself for no other reason than the fact that it’s beautiful and it exists and it’s there, and none of us really know why, but we’re glad it does. We’re tiny parts of a much bigger world in an impossibly big galaxy, but so much life can exist even in the small, simple things. It’s the awareness, but it’s the acceptance, too. We can’t change most things. But sometimes, all we need to do is live, and that’s okay.” They’re so close now. It is like falling through the sky. Lexa is a goner and she thinks she can finally accept that. She can finally stop lying to herself. Can finally stop running and hiding. She’s a goner. Clarke is everything and Lexa is in too deep. Still, she licks her lips, whispers, “Does that make sense?”

 

Clarke’s eyes catch on the movements and Lexa realizes how they both seem to be lacking air. She can’t take it any more. She moves her hand again, cupping the back of Clarke’s neck, and she kisses her.

 

Who needs air anyway?

 

 

\\\\\

 

 

This.

 

 _This_ is why life is about more than just surviving.

 

The colors that burst and dance behind Lexa’s eyelids at that first contact, at the pressure of Clarke’s lips on her own, are far more vivid and stirring than any sunset or flower or rainbow or shade of iris she has ever known. _This._ This is it. Soft, warm lips slanting against her own that taste as sweet as powdered sugar, laced with something sharper, richer—something that pulls low in Lexa’s belly and sends heat coursing through her veins, flooding fingertips that trace constellations against smooth skin. Their lips move slowly, softly, hardly a whisper at times, but _oh._ What had they been waiting for?

 

Clarke pushes in and the space between them is inhaled away. Clarke is everywhere, assaulting her senses. Lexa’s heart is thrumming and the overwhelming ache rising from her belly like sweet, voluptuous plumes is dizzying but her head has never been clearer. This is everything and she never, ever wants to stop.

 

And Lexa is just beginning to think maybe she is ready, finally, ready to try again, ready to _live_ again—when Clarke pulls back.

 

It takes her a moment to comprehend the loss of contact; Lexa chases her, nose dragging against Clarke’s before realization settles in and she pulls back at once.

 

Clarke blinks those beautiful blue eyes, her golden-brown lashes fluttering, and Lexa waits, feeling a bit like she is shrinking into herself as she stands on the edge of a precipice with jagged rocks down far below. At this moment, she could either fly or fall, and it all depends on Clarke.

 

“I’m sorry,” rasps Clarke, voice airy in a way Lexa has never heard it; the husk of it makes her stomach clench and heart pound wildly against her rib cage. It makes her dazed and it makes her hope, even with the terror gripping her at the fact that Clarke was apologizing and Lexa doesn’t know why. “I just—you’re my best friend, I don’t—I don’t want to screw that up because we were caught up in the moment.”

 

_Caught up in the moment._

 

Oh.

 

Lexa holds her gaze, carefully composing her expression; even she could feel the heart eyes she was probably giving out right now. Anya’s snide voice was in her head, telling her to tone it down, to back off.

 

“I don’t either,” admits Lexa.

 

“And anyway…” Clarke looks down and the strange sensation of feeling as though she is deliberately avoiding Lexa’s eyes settles uncomfortably on her skin. “I’m not ready for a relationship. Not yet.”

 

Lexa nods, swallowing down the choking anguish her heart is pushing into her throat. “Okay,” she says, because that’s all she can do.

 

 

 

\\\\\

 

They get an A+ on their project.

 

Lexa and Clarke do, anyway. Apparently the professor is able to see who edits the Google Docs and how often. Jasper, who did not work on the paper once, is given a zero (Professor Gustus holds fast, even when Jasper whines that writing his name should give him at least a couple of points), and Murphy is taken away by the Dean because he’s apparently not even enrolled as a student (“I knew it!” “I was the one who told you I was pretty sure he’s not a student here, Clarke.” “Yeah, _pretty_ sure. Not a hundred percent like I was.” “Uh huh.”)

 

Despite the victory of the A on their paper, they remain busy still holed up in the library on most days of the week, studying together for their comprehensive test. Sometimes Lexa has difficulty avoiding slipping up and revealing the truth—such as the day Clarke brings iced donuts instead of powdered, and Lexa takes the pink one with sprinkles with such eagerness Clarke is prompted to laugh and ask why. “The strawberry ones are the best,” says Lexa thickly through her mouthful. When Clarke’s brow knits and she asks how Lexa knew that one was strawberry, Lexa nearly chokes. She gulps down the apple juice Clarke hands to her and the best cover she can come up with is a shrug and a “Lucky guess.” Clarke’s brow arches but she doesn’t say anything.

 

It happens again when Lexa realizes that Clarke seems to have bought new notecards; they are multi-colored rather than white lined paper. She almost says something before she remembers herself. She bites her tongue, puts her head down, and focuses on her own notes. She’s so consumed she doesn’t even realize that Clarke seems to be moving through her reading much faster than she usually does, and later, when Clarke begs her to finish the last donut because she herself is stuffed to bursting, and she shoves one into Lexa’s mouth and smears pink icing across her cheek, Lexa isn’t sure which feeling is greater: the gnawing guilt and insistent panic because she always feels so close to messing everything up, or the joy of simply being around Clarke.

 

The end of the semester rapidly approaches, and exactly one week before graduation finds Lexa lounging in bed watching Clarke rummage through her wardrobe to help her find an outfit for the party tonight.

 

“Why couldn’t this be a pool party like all the other universities are throwing?” drawls Lexa, watching with amusement (and a tiny bit of disapproval) as Clarke adds more clothes to the growing mound on Lexa’s bed. “Throwing on a bathing suit is easier than picking outfits.”

 

Clarke stills for half a beat before recovering swiftly. “Stop moping. We’re going to have a blast tonight.”

 

“A sober blast,” says Lexa, arching a brow. “We have class tomorrow.”

 

Clarke twists around to grin at her. “Exactly, we both have class tomorrow. One person can take notes, the other can sleep off their hangover. It’s been a hell of a semester, Lexa, we _need_ a party.”  
  
Lexa gives a long-suffering sigh, more to make Clarke laugh than anything.

 

“You know, if you really wanted me to be excited for a party, all you have to do is bring some powdered donuts,” offers Lexa. Clarke purses her lips as though she’s actually considering it, so it’s Lexa’s turn to laugh now. Clarke rolls her eyes, resuming her search.

 

“Stop teasing me and come try on some outfits.”

 

Lexa sighs again, but she can’t fight off her smile as she slides off her bed to stand at Clarke’s side. “Okay, okay.” She holds her hands out expectantly.

 

“Here, let me find some leggings and you can wear this,” says Clarke, blindly pushing the green sweater into Lexa’s hands with one hand while using the other to continue digging in the closet. “It’s thick enough to keep you warm in case there’s a chill, plus it matches your eyes.”

 

Lexa freezes.

 

“It’d look cute with those new boots you have too, where are those?” asks Clarke, voice muffled as her torso disappears behind the jackets in her search. Lexa hardly hears her. Clarke’s other words are echoing madly in her ears.

 

“What did you say?” says Lexa faintly.

 

“Mmm?” hums Clarke distractedly. She lifts a pair of black leggings up to observe.

 

“What did you say?” The sweater hangs limply from Lexa’s hands.

 

Clarke’s brow knits as she throws Lexa a confused glance over her shoulder. She pulls another pair of leggings, this pair gray, out of the wardrobe, then finally stills when she notices Lexa’s expression. “What? What do you mean?”

 

Lexa lifts the fabric, wordlessly gesturing at it. Clarke’s gaze flickers from it to Lexa and there is a brief moment—hardly a second—when her eyes widen and her cheeks pale. Then it vanishes, leaving her expression utterly unreadable.

 

Clarke takes a breath, clears her throat, and resolutely turns back to face the closet. “What do you mean?” she says and Lexa doesn’t know if it’s said quickly or calmly or there’s a tremor to it but she steps forward and closes her grip around Clarke’s wrist anyway, pulling her around.

 

“Lexa—“ begins Clarke in protest, but Lexa doesn’t let go.

 

“You said this matches my eyes,” says Lexa, half in shock and half in—something else. Something that tastes faintly of terror and hope. “How do you know this sweater is green, Clarke? And I never told you what color my eyes are.”

 

Clarke glances at the sweater again before her blue gaze flickers back to meet Lexa’s. “It’s a figure of speech.”

 

Lexa shakes her head. “It’s not a figure of speech.”

 

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

 

“It means everything!” bursts Lexa, finally releasing Clarke’s wrist. There’s anger boiling in her gut, but something terrifying swimming in her chest, in her eyes. “You can see!”

 

“So what?”

 

“So what?” repeats Lexa incredulously, throwing the sweater onto the heap of clothes piled on the bed. _“So what?_ So everything! When? When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me? Why—“

 

“Because it doesn't matter!” Clarke clearly doesn’t like being cornered in the wardrobe with Lexa bearing down on her. She pushes past her. “And it’s none of your business what I choose to share with you, Lexa. I don’t _owe_ you anything.”

 

“I didn’t say you do,” says Lexa, nonplussed and stung by the accusation. “I just. You can _see._ You can see and you’ve been—what, lying this whole time? What for?”

 

“I wasn’t lying,” snaps Clarke. She is pacing in the small space between the wall and the bed, hands balled into fists at her side. “Not at first.”

 

“Not at first,” says Lexa slowly. “So…it’s a new thing?” When Clarke jerks her shoulder in confirmation, Lexa has to take a moment. A moment to breathe, to really acknowledge the lump in her throat and tremor in her hands. A moment to step forward and decide whether or not she wants to be accusatory or gentle. Maybe both. “I’m supposed to be your best friend. What did I do to make you feel too uncomfortable to tell me about this?”

 

“God, _Lexa,”_ growls Clarke suddenly, eyes wild with frustration and sorrow and something else that Lexa can’t quite identify. “That’s _exactly_ why I didn’t tell you!”

 

“What did I do?”

 

Air escapes Clarke’s nostrils in a huff. She stomps over to Lexa, pointing a finger in her face. “You’re my best friend. _My best friend.”_

 

Lexa stands stiffly, clenching her jaw, because of course her back is going to rise at Clarke’s anger (she tells herself it’s not a defensive mechanism at her own disappointment in herself, because how stupid was she to hope, even for a brief second, that Clarke seeing color now could have something to do with her). “Apparently that doesn’t mean much.”

 

Clarke’s nostrils flare the same time Lexa’s do and suddenly she is so close. Lexa’s senses are overwhelmed with blue and gold and pink cheeks and pink lips and she is not at all ready for this. Her pride falters in the face of Clarke Griffin approaching her like a hurricane surges the shore and Lexa fumbles and takes a stumbling step back.

 

“You've been seeing color again for _weeks_  and never told me,” says Clarke threateningly. Their knees knock as Clarke backs Lexa into the nightstand and the hard wooden drawers hit the backs of her calves. Lexa grips onto it, less to stabilize it and more to steady herself. Her short nails scrape the surface as she clutches the edge tightly. “How do you think that made _me_ feel? Like I’m not good enough? Like I’m not enough _period_?”

 

Lexa stares at her, face burning. “How did you know?”

 

“You _told_ me.” The heated words don’t hit as hard when Clarke glances at Lexa’s lips before resolutely raising them. “Before we kissed. I know I have blue eyes, Lexa. Finn told me every fucking day. Wells told me on his deathbed. My dad told me all the time.”

 

Vulnerability masked as humiliation recoils in Lexa’s gut. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

 

 _“Because_ this is _bullshit_.” Clarke’s lower lip is trembling, but her gaze is steady. Lexa holds it. She stares back because she doesn’t know what else to do. She doesn’t understand anything. But Clarke doesn't continue. They just remain where they are, standing far too close together, almost nose to nose, Lexa nearly pinned up against the nightstand.

 

“Why?” Lexa finally demands, searching Clarke’s eyes for an answer.

 

Her own eyes sting when she sees the tears overflow in Clarke’s. “Because...they get hurt.” Clarke’s voice is almost inaudible, glossy eyes unfocused as though she’s staring through Lexa rather than at her. “Everyone that loves me. They get hurt, and I lose them.”

 

The air in the room is too tense, and Lexa isn’t sure who is more poised as the knife. It is heavy and precarious and—she doesn’t know who could more easily shatter the other, right now.

 

And then the silence stretching between them is broken by a sharp rap of knuckles on Lexa’s bedroom door, followed by Anya’s reluctant voice.

 

“Hey…everything okay in there? I heard raised voices…”

 

Clarke blinks, coming back to herself, and hastily steps back from Lexa just as Anya opens the door.

 

“Wha—“ begins Anya, but Clarke is already pushing past her. A moment later, the front door opens and closes.

 

Lexa is left standing, the discarded clothes scattered around her more significant and representative of her situation than she feels they should be.

 

“What was that about?”

 

Lexa takes one breath and finds her voice blocked. She unsuccessfully chokes back the tears and sinks onto the bed, burying her face in her hands. Anya’s weight dips the mattress and a second later, a reassuring hand is rubbing circles into Lexa’s back. Anya had always been one to encourage strength, but it isn’t necessary here. They had comforted one another since they were twelve and protecting one another in the system. This is how they operated.

 

“You’re still a big gay disaster, aren’t you?” says Anya sympathetically, and then Lexa is laughing, and then she is crying, and she wipes her tears with the sleeve of the green sweater Clarke had picked out.

 

\\\\\

 

 

“You’re watching the sunset while pining over Clarke.” Anya snorts. “Sometimes I forget just how gay you are.”

 

Lexa glowers at her before swiveling around again. She grips the balcony railing more tightly and leans against it, resisting the urge to shiver because it wouldn’t be the chilly air that made her do it. Her encounter with Clarke is still echoing in her head. Clarke’s hard, furious gaze is still imprinted on the insides of Lexa’s eyelids. Clarke stormed out of her house an hour ago and Lexa is terrified that’s the last time she’ll ever see her. She’s terrified she ruined everything.

 

“You can talk to me about it, you know,” says Anya casually as she comes to stand beside Lexa, shoulders bumping. “I mean. I know I’m not the best at this sort of thing. But I can try.” _For you._ She doesn’t need to say the words for Lexa to hear them.

 

Lexa opens her mouth to decline, but finds she doesn’t want to. Not this time.

 

“I can see color again.”

 

Anya blinks slowly in response. Lexa lifts a brow. “You aren’t surprised?”

 

“Well, no. Any idiot can see you guys are meant for each other. There’s no way you’re the only one seeing color, so…I’m guessing the fight was because one or both of you don’t want to be seeing. Was it about Costia?”

 

Right to the point. It isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last that Lexa feels a rush of appreciation for her best friend’s bluntness.

 

“No. Not exactly. At first, it was. I’ve been seeing for…well, a long time, I don’t exactly know when it started. Maybe when we met. Part of me didn’t believe it, and the other part…”

 

“You were scared. You don’t want to get hurt again.”

 

Lexa nods. “Yeah. Tonight Clarke let it slip that she can see too, and that she knows I can see. She’s…not happy about it.”

 

Anya scrutinizes her. “Why wouldn't she be happy about it?” When Lexa hesitates, Anya shakes her head. “I don’t need details.”

 

“She’s loved and lost too.” She sighs, scrubbing her hands over her face. She blinks balefully at the horizon; the sky was a dusky orange blending into faded indigo. It was beautiful, she supposes. “I don’t know what to do. I…I never thought this would happen to me. Sometimes I thought seeing again was just a myth.”

 

Anya sighs too, frowning thoughtfully at the sunset. “Sometimes I still question whether seeing period is real. I guess it’s something you should hold onto, if you’ve got it.”

 

“But what if you lose it again?”

 

Anya shrugs. “I don’t know, Lex. Was what you had with Costia worth it? Was it worth the pain of losing it, or do you wish you never had it at all?”

 

Lexa swallows at the lump blocking her throat. She imagines going through a gray life without ever having met Costia. She couldn’t miss what she never had, but since she did have it…

 

“It was worth it.”

 

Anya nods as though she never expected anything less. “Is Clarke worth it?”

 

A quiet breath of laughter tumbles free from Lexa’s lips, more free than anguished now. “God, yes.”

 

“Then you know what to do. Stop being a mopey idiot staring at the sunset and go get shit done.”

 

Lexa smiles. “Thanks, Ahn.”

 

“Don’t mention it,” she says gruffly. Lexa squeezes her shoulder in leiu of a hug before stepping back, heading toward the door. Anya looks over her shoulder to call out, “No, seriously, don’t. It’s embarrassing how gay you are and I don’t want to be associated with that disgusting lovey crap.”

 

“Love you too.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.”

 

\\\\\

 

When Lexa arrives at Clarke’s apartment, Raven is walking down the steps, pulling a leather jacket on over her _Dropship_ t-shirt. She pauses at the bottom, eyes lingering on Lexa as she bends over double to catch her breath.

 

“She’s pretty upset,” she says.

 

“Think I can fix it?”

 

Raven lifted her brows. “Maybe if you’d brought some pizza.”

 

“Honestly.”

 

Raven rolls her eyes, the ghost of a smirk on her face as she resumes doing up her jacket. “Of course you can. She’s crazy about you, any idiot can see that.” Lexa presses her lips together; if she weren’t so nervous, she’d be smiling at Raven echoing Anya’s words. “I’m heading to work, so, like, try not to have make-up sex on my couch, okay?”

 

Lexa rolls her eyes, walking past Raven and entering the apartment. She’s met with music blaring so loud it hurt her eardrums.

 

“Clarke?” she calls as she ventures into the apartment, palms pressed to her ears. Clarke doesn’t answer and really, Lexa hadn’t expected her to. She pushes Clarke’s bedroom door open.

 

The first thing she notices is Clarke, curled up in bed staring up at the glow in the dark stars on her ceiling with a hollow anguish in her eyes. There is a half-eaten box of powdered donuts beside her that Lexa is fairly certain she had left in the living room from their Harry Potter marathon last night.

 

The second thing Lexa notices is the new painting propped up against the window.

 

“Lexa!” The music shuts off with a strangled garble. Clarke scrambles up, moving into the center of the room as though to block Lexa’s line of vision, but it’s too late.

 

She moves forward and Clarke backpedals before performing a weird half-circle in place, as though unsure where to go and torn between sprinting to the painting to chuck it out the window, or fleeing out the open door. As a result, she stands frozen in place on the tips of her toes, eyes wide and stricken on Lexa, who has moved forward to stand directly in front of the painting.

 

Lexa is dumbfounded. Her mouth opens and closes a few times without working as she simply gapes at the painting, speechless, until finally she manages to ask, “How long did this take you?”

 

Clarke clears her throat, shuffling her feet. She looks down at them for a moment before blinking and looking back up, leveling her bright blue gaze on Lexa. “A couple weeks.”

 

The painting is larger than the galaxy one but still not big enough to warrant how absolutely _consuming_ it feels. Lexa stares in shock at the splash of colors on the canvas, the shining chestnut hair cascading over pale shoulders and tan arms, the rosy cheeks and red lips—the green, green eyes, more vibrant than she ever imagined her eyes could be. Lexa stares at the painting of herself, and she can’t breathe. Or maybe she can breathe, far better than she ever had before.

 

The silence stretches on again as she gazes at the painting. She can feel Clarke’s nerves growing, her panic palpable, but it can’t touch Lexa. The painting serves as a sun warming her to her very fingertips; she flexes her hands open at her side, splaying her fingers out, resisting the urge to nervously pick at the threads of her pants as she works up the courage to turn around and speak. She knows what this means. Clarke knows what this means, too, even if she’s working her ass off to fight it.

 

Lexa turns around. She is still quiet; Clarke’s chest is rising and falling rapidly as she draws in quick, shallow breaths. She hasn’t moved from where she stands but she’s still shifting her weight, restless, as though hovering on the cusp of a decision to run away.

  
Lexa tilts her head. “Is it egotistical if I say the painting is beautiful?”

 

Clarke’s lips twitch, but it seems more out of her suppressed panic than humor. “No. Thank you.”

 

Silence again. Lexa swallows, waiting. Clarke’s eyes dart to the doorway and Lexa steps forward.

 

“This is stupid. We can see because of each other.”

 

“That’s exactly why it’s scary!” says Clarke, a babbling note of hysteria lingering at the catch of her breath.

 

“What’s scary about it?”

 

 _“Everything!”_ Clarke explodes. “Wells saw color the day he died. I came to visit him and he said he woke up that morning to my text and suddenly he could see everything, but he was stuck in a hospital room. He could see his fucking lunch tray. He could see the sky and the trees outside. He could see his own skin color and my mom and the television and then me. And then he died. Finn sees color the minute he sees me and I don’t love him back, but the person it fucks up the most is Raven. My dad died and it broke my mom’s heart and I’ll never forget what a horrible place we were in for so long afterwards. You loved Costia and she loved you and then she died and you couldn’t see anymore, aren’t you _scared?_ Aren’t you scared that you can see again? What if you lose it all over again? Why aren’t you freaking _out,_ Lexa?”

 

“Because it’s a _gift!”_ Lexa surges forward and Clarke takes a step back. Lexa doesn’t care. She doesn’t care because Clarke’s eyes are bright and her lip is trembling and she’s breathing fast, but her eyes flicker to Lexa’s lips, her body angles toward her, and suddenly that feels a lot like hope. “Clarke, you said it yourself! We can’t just shut down and work and do what we’re supposed to do all the time! Sometimes we need to breathe, we should paint when we want to paint and put stupid glow on the dark stars on the ceiling and eat shitty, unhealthy donuts and take breaks from homework to eat pizza and watch Disney movies! Otherwise what’s the point? What’s the point of everything being black and white until you meet your soulmate? I don’t appreciate seeing the fucking sunset because of the colors, Clarke, I appreciate it because of _you_. You gave me the ability. You’re the one that makes it possible for me to look at a sunset and feel it swell in my chest because the world doesn’t seem so bad with you in it. Life _is_ about more than just surviving. Love is strength, not weakness. You helped me realize that.” She cups Clarke’s face, brushing the pad of her thumb through the tear tracks. Lexa’s heart leaps wildly, bouncing against her rib cage, when Clarke leans into her touch, briefly closing her eyes and letting out a shaky breath.

 

“You can’t leave me,” says Clarke after a moment, in the quietest, most broken voice possible. “You can’t leave me here alone. You can’t—you can’t ever die on me, okay?”

 

Lexa’s lips twist. “Is death the only thing you ever talk about?”

 

Clarke sniffles, eyes slowly brightening. “No. Pizza. I like to talk about pizza.”

 

“Do you want to go get some?” says Lexa carefully. When Clarke levels her gaze, Lexa says, “As in a date. Can I take you on a date to get some pizza?”

 

Clarke stares at her for a long moment. Lexa resists the urge to squirm beneath those intense blue eyes. Then—

 

Clarke leans forward, and fits their mouths together. All the remaining air in Lexa’s lungs is gone.

 

When Clarke pulls back, Lexa blinks dazed, hazy eyes at her.

 

“Sorry. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that since…”

 

“Yeah.” Lexa nods, enthusiastically enough it pulls her favorite smirk from Clarke. “Me too. Is that a yes to the date, then?”

 

“Was that not obvious?” teases Clarke.

 

Lexa bites her lip to stop her smile from stretching too wide before a new thought occurs to her and her brow creases in concern. “Are you sure you’re okay with changing the plans? I thought you wanted a party?”

 

Clarke rolls her eyes and shakes her head, lips curved with an affectionate smile that she presses to Lexa’s cheek before she slips her arm down to take Lexa’s hand. “I don’t want a party, Lexa. I want _you.”_ She entwines their fingers and squeezes. “Let’s go get some pizza.”

 

 

\\\\\

 

The date is lovely and Lexa is sure the pizza is delicious, but she can barely taste it.

 

She can’t stop looking at Clarke’s lips.

 

Clarke can’t stop looking at hers.

 

Their laughter echoes above the chatter of the other customers. Lexa points at the different toppings on their pizza to teach Clarke what various colors are. The night is nothing but smiles and shaky breaths with calm acceptance in their hearts.

 

“So,” begins Clarke as they meander their way across campus hand-in-hand, twinkling stars stretching out above them and glittering streetlights paving their way. “If you don’t mind me asking…when exactly did you start seeing?”

 

“Honestly? I think the first time I saw you.” Her face warms when Clarke looks at her with wide, meaningful eyes. “I looked up at you and—just for a minute, I think I saw blue. Your eyes. I blinked and it went back to normal, but after that, I would always see snatches of color.” She smiles when Clarke leans in on her tip-toes to press her lips to her cheek. “Do you…is it okay if I ask you the same thing?”

 

It’s Clarke’s turn to blush. “Ah…well. About that…”

 

Lexa tilts her head curiously when Clarke looks away. She squeezes her hand and stops so she can gently cup Clarke’s cheek and turn her to face her. “What? You can tell me anything.”

 

“Well…it was actually last semester,” she confesses, licking her lips. Lexa is the one staring now. “When Lincoln pointed you out to me. It was kind of the same thing. I saw color for a second. You were wearing a red scarf, your hair was brown…then I blinked and everything went back to normal and I told myself I was just really fascinated by your tattoo.”

 

Lexa’s head is reeling with this new information, but she senses now is not the time to delve into that. Instead she just grins, warmth flooding her chest at the grin Clarke gives her in response. She brushes a kiss across the top of Clarke’s nose and then Clarke is gently tugging her forward again, leading her to her apartment.

 

“What’s your favorite color so far?”

 

Clarke bites her lip, glancing at Lexa before staring determinedly up at the sky. “Definitely green.” She squeezes her hand. “What’s yours?”

 

“Blue.”

 

“Predictable,” teases Clarke with a playful roll of her eyes.

 

A corner of Lexa’s lips tugs up. “You love it.”

 

Clarke’s smirk settles into a small smile that is as tender as the way her gaze meets Lexa’s. “I do. I really do.”

 

///

 

Sweet, chaste kisses on the doorstop shift into hot slanting tongues and scrapes of teeth and hands slipping beneath hems and—

 

“Can I come inside?” husks Clarke and Lexa wants to ask her why she even thought she needs to ask that but Clarke’s lips are fixed on her throat and her fingertips are tripping and sliding through places that are better explored in private, so she wastes no more time in reaching blindly behind her to open the door.

 

They stumble inside and when Clarke’s clothes are scattered haphazardly around the room Lexa realizes Anya may have a point; the candles could be a fire hazard. But then Clarke’s low voice is whispering things in her ear and she forgets candles even exist (later, Anya will laugh and tell Clarke that she’s is the only thing that could ever make Lexa forget the existence of candles). They fall onto the mattress, bare and warm and—

 

_Wow._

 

Lexa doesn’t realize she breathed the words aloud until Clarke’s grip around her wrist tightens. She just stares down, marveling at Clarke’s perfect naked body, pale thighs spread open and ready for her.

 

“Oh my God, Clarke. You’re so beautiful.”

 

“And you’re wearing too many clothes,” says Clarke sternly, biting her lip as she rises up onto her knees, deft fingers filtering through buttons and tugging and pulling until Lexa’s clothes are flung across the room and hot flesh is pressed to hot flesh and the scent of arousal is in the air and Lexa marvels at the fact that Clarke’s eyes are a darker shade of blue than she has ever seen them, very nearly black. They’re gorgeous, Clarke is gorgeous, and Lexa is in awe of everything about her—the rosy flush of her cheeks, the shade of her kiss-bruised lips, and later—the way her blonde hair grows darker when it is damp with sweat, the red lines on their skin from nails cutting into flesh, the purple marks lining their bodies like map trails on faded parchment.

 

Clarke bites her shoulder and kisses her neck and spins them around, straddling Lexa and kissing her way down her trembling body before slowing, dusting gentle kisses on protruding hipbones and the junction of Lexa’s thighs. Clarke sits up and nudges Lexa’s legs open with her knee and then everything stops.

 

Clarke stares, and stares, long enough to unnerve Lexa. She shifts uneasily. “What?”

 

A corner of Clarke’s lips curls upward, slowly, in a smile that seems to purr. “Nothing, I just…”

 

“What?” Lexa repeats, torn between concern and amusement.

 

Clarke has a full-blown smirk now as she stares, one brow slowly arching as she shakes her head. “It’s just. I never imagined pink could be such a sexy color.”

 

The blush burns all the way to the tips of her ears. Lexa rears up, locking her arms around Clarke’s neck and pulling her down with her as they fall back on the mattress, Lexa muffling Clarke’s giggles with a kiss.

 

They explore one another with soft kisses and sure fingers and canting hips. Clarke makes the most beautiful breathy noises Lexa has ever heard (though Anya must disagree, because they hear a scoff, a sigh, a chuckle, and then the opening and closing of the front door, and later Clarke will forever claim it’s thanks to her that Anya and Raven finally met, for Anya went to the bar where Raven happened to work at, and Clarke and Lexa were not the only ones having color burst beneath their eyelids that night). Moans and gasps skitter through the still night air, and they have never been more certain there are stars on Lexa’s ceiling than when they are flung together off the peak.

 

The candles are nearly spent (“Maybe Anya has a point…you do have a lot of candles. You have five on your nightstand alone.” “You just had more orgasms than I have candles. Stop complaining.” “Oh believe me, I’m not.” “So smug.” “You love it.” “Yeah. I really do.”) and dawn is approaching when they finally slip into slumber tangled up together with the blanket twisted around them. In the morning, Lexa rises first and cooks eggs and bacon and laughs at Clarke’s pouting that she expected something as delicious as bacon to be more colorful.

 

They send emails to their professors claiming they’re aren’t feeling too well. Lexa texts Anya to let her know Clarke is staying over tonight too, and Clarke calls Raven to let her know she’s not returning to their apartment again, and they are simultaneously delighted and scandalized to hear both of their roommates’ voices through the phone. With a warning from all four girls demanding to be fed information the next day, the call is ended. Lexa puts a movie on and they spend the day not watching it. For dinner, Clarke orders Chinese food.

 

“I can’t believe you didn’t order pizza.”

 

“We just had pizza last night! Plus, sometimes it’s good to take a chance, try new things,” adds Clarke with a lazy smirk that has Lexa’s eyes trailing the length of her curvy exposed legs beneath the t-shirt she borrowed from Lexa. “Don’t worry, you’ll get dessert too.”

 

Lexa blushes and Clarke laughs.

 

“I actually meant that when I was ordering, I wrote on the special requests asking them to pick up a box of powered donuts. But don’t worry. You can have two desserts tonight.”

 

Lexa rolls her eyes and buries her face in the crook of Clarke’s neck. Clarke strokes the length of her back and they kiss before facing the window. The flowers on the windowsill are multi-colorful and vivid. Beyond them are pink low-lying clouds in a faded orange sky. It is not the first and certainly not the last of many beautiful sunsets.

 

“Is it too soon to tell you I love you?” whispers Clarke.

 

Lexa heart swells, but she tries to play it cool. The huge grin spreading from ear to ear probably doesn’t help. “More than pizza?”

 

The nervousness in Clarke’s eyes fades away at her grin. “Definitely.”

 

Lexa smiles and kisses her until Clarke’s eyes are hazy and her own t-shirt is fisted around Clarke’s hand, tugging her in for more. “I love you _so_ much.”

 

“More than donuts?”

 

Lexa pretends to think about; Clarke rolls her eyes.

 

“I can see why it would be a difficult decision,” says Clarke casually, pretending to observe her fingernails. “We’re both delicious, and we both end up all over your face when you eat…”

 

Lexa gapes, scandalized and impressed.

 

Clarke cheerfully drops a kiss to Lexa’s nose. “It can be equal. I’m happy with that.”

 

“I definitely love you more than donuts.”

 

“I know.” Clarke sighs, smiling as she snuggles into Lexa’s side. She tilts her head up and purses her lips expectantly.

 

Lexa cups her face, sweeping her thumb over her cheek before pressing their smiles together.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler alert: they live happily ever after.
> 
> Please please drop a comment telling me what you thought, they validate my existence :)
> 
> Happy Clexaweek, kru! So much love for you all. Lexa lives on through us.


End file.
